“I’ve always said fantasy is sort of ‘stealth philosophy.’” – Terry Goodkind
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Everyone can use a feel good moment to start the day. Let’s go with this…
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Since I received so much love for my peanut butter personal story here’s one from today.
My wife’s 27” iMac runs very, very quietly, it’s like the machine is in stealth mode. My son has an identical machine, a bit newer, but same model, again… these things are quiet, like I mean no sound at all. They play World of Warcraft, Starcraft etc. and it’s like playing in Get Smart’s dome of silence. If I were comparing these machines to cars they would be electric Ferraris; fast, elegant and oh so quiet.
My machine, a PC is big and loud like a diesel truck. Bawooom! Go the fans on startup and just about every minute afterwards. It’s like this beast is screaming “I’m on! I’m on! I’m on! Here me roar!” After an couple of hours of raiding I’m glad that I had headphones on for Vent. The PC also weighs more than both iMacs and my daughters Macbook Pro put together. I know this because I had to move this tanker when we had our reno problems (see earlier Reloading…)
But today… oh today… my wife's iMac turned on and it was like a jet on takeoff. 747s don’t make as much noise as this machine did. It was if all the noise it had made in the past year or so had been stored away, waiting to be released in one blast of gusto. The worst part, the fans just didn’t shut off. It was louder than my PC. I was considering getting earplugs for the kids or renting it out to anti-surveillance companies so they could use it as white noise to block those pesky wire-tappers.
I did what every computer owner does, I looked on the Internet for the means to quiet this squall and guess what the official Apple tech support answer is to this very problem? Turn the machine off. Unplug it. Leave it unplugged for two minutes and then plug it in and start it. Yeah right.
Wow, it worked!
High tech.
In real gaming news, the transformers franchise is getting a MMO. It didn’t make my list of cool MMO ideas, but it would be a fun game to play if done right. Who doesn’t want to be a robot that can fight other robots? Here is the trailer from Jagex, who happen to be the company behind RuneScape.
In the original Loading… column I often poked fun at North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-il. He’s in the news for real today (in your past given my column time machine), with a story that he ordered a team of Chinese hackers to break into South Korean game servers and steal/farm gold. The gold was then laundered to help fund North Korea. The full story can be found here.
Carbine Studios will be unveiling a stealth MMO that they have had in development to visitors of gamescom in Cologne, Germany. What could it be?
Would you consider playing a Transformers MMO? Could Kim Jong-il be crazier? What is Carbine developing? Do tell.
When it comes to World of Warcraft, Blizzard is not having a good year. They just announced a loss of another 300,000 players in the last quarter and the launch of Star Wars: The Old Republic is getting closer. Does this spell the end of WoW?
On Arkenstone server, Aesir is one of the largest, most active raiding kinships. In an effort to gain a better understanding of how raiding kins work and what makes them successful, we asked one of their raid leaders a few questions.
Has Aion finally ascended, or are its wings just for show still? Let's take a look at how the game has changed since its launch almost two years ago in September of 2009.
Premium Members get to take their best Cheap Shot each week for a chance to win a game time card of their choice. And each year we'll draw someone at random from our Cheap Shots winners to win a ginormous grand prize! (We can't tell you what it is yet, but it'll be big.)
If you're a premium member, post your Cheap Shots in our forum for a chance to win. If you're not a Premium Member you can become one now and start winning prizes and gaining access to exclusive content.
PlayerScore 4.9.00 is now available for download! This new version features the restoration of the database mode and several other feature:
To view the database, simply install PlayerScore 4.9.00 and choose “View Database” from the WoW minimap icon. Once you’re in the database you can click the headers to sort by that type, or change the page. You can also choose to view data for your current group, your guild, or everyone you’ve met!
If you use the PlayerScore updater, you can pre-download most of the scores for your server. This has the added benifit of adding tooltips to your chat window. Mouse over players to see information about them.
In real gaming news, the transformers franchise is getting a MMO. It didn’t make my list of cool MMO ideas, but it would be a fun game to play if done right. Who doesn’t want to be a robot that can fight other robots? Here is the trailer from Jagex, who happen to be the company behind RuneScape.
